Another FREE Bag

In celebration of Earth Day, Walgreens is offering a free reusable shopping bag with any purchase as well as 15% off eligible store items. If you're heading to Walgreens, click here to print your coupon before you go. It's only good for today!

Another Site for Free Movies

Some of you may remember my earlier post about free or cheap movie sources. Since that time, I've stumbled on another, fancast.com. Although I haven't yet watched any, it looks like a nice selection of movies and TV show episodes. Enjoy!

FREE Reusable Shopping Bag

If you live near a Dillon's grocery store, be sure to take advantage of this offer for a free reusable shopping bag. All you have to do is go to their website, create a quick design for a reusable bag, enter your design & vote, and viola - a coupon for a free bag will be loaded onto your Dillon's Shopper Card for use during your next visit.

Even though I am something of a reusable bag snob when it comes to grocery shopping (I only use my heavy-duty canvas bags because they hold half the store and make my life much easier), I use my collection of odds and ends light-weight bags for other things. And I always keep one folded in my purse for those oops-I-didn't-think-about-it occasions.

Here's just a few examples of their usefulness:

• Toting library books home
• Carrying things to and from work (lunch included)
• Farmer's markets
• Quick trips to the drug store or Target

And, of course, perhaps the single most important use:

• Kenneling haphazard piles of mail and papers into when company comes

Frugal Find - FREE Ziplocs

Ever have one of those weeks when nothing seems to go right? I've been having a couple of those weeks back to back. First, some family drama complete with calling circles and raised blood pressure. Then, a car ran a red light and smashed into my car. And, of course, the ensuing insurance hoops - is it totaled or isn't it. Ick!

But today I found a little ray of sunshine in the form of FREE things. While at Hy-Vee, I noticed they had a bunch of Ziploc bags marked down to 2/$1. And I just so happened to have 5 coupons for $0.55 off so I came home with all these for free. Hooray for the little things!

Bath & Body Works Freebie

Yesterday, I got a nice $10 gift card in the mail for Bath & Body Works, thanks to mypoints. Before I head out to spend it, I thought I'd take a few minutes to look for a coupon to maximize my "free stuff" trip and came across this coupon for a free Signature Collection body care item with any $10 purchase. Bingo!

3-in-1 Meals: Part One - Spaghetti & Meatballs

Around here, we love America's Test Kitchen. Most of our favorite, and almost all our foolproof, recipes have come from the pages of their cookbooks or the web content of their show. Our latest favorite is this Marinara & Meatballs recipe. Although factoring in good ingredients which are essential to the recipe made it seem a little pricey, we found that we can easily get 7 or 8 meals out of one batch, thus reducing the cost to a completely acceptable range. And the taste is divine!

First up was spaghetti and meatballs, of course. A few notes on the recipe:

1. Be sure to buy decent quality, block Parmesan cheese and grate it yourself. It is absolutely worth the splurge - trust me!
2. Use fresh basil and parsley, not dried.
3. Don't skimp on the onions. I used three large yellow onions, which had my kids moaning about too many onions (I am a certified onion lover so it's a common moan around here), but they loved the sauce!
4. Unless you like meatballs the size of hamburger patties, do what I did. Make normal size meatballs (a scant ice cream scooper full works great). I reduced the baking time by 5 minutes for the meatballs and cooked them in two big batches, the first of which I added to the sauce as directed, and the second of which I froze for later use.

Whatever you don't eat, freeze for later. Here's what I got from one batch in addition to that night's meal:

• 3 ziplocks with enough sauce and meatballs for spaghetti
• 3 ziplocks with enough sauce (no meatballs) for pizzas
• 2 snack-size ziplocks with just enough sauce for subs (1/8 - 1/4 c. is plenty)
• 4 ziplocks with enough meatballs for subs

Coming Soon:
Part Two - Homemade Pizzas
&
Part Three - Amazing Meatball Subs

Frugal Finds

Here are some of this week's highlights:

At Dillon's
4 bags Iams Puppy Food - $6.39 ea., used 4 $5 coupons
FINAL COST: $1.39 ea.
Peppermint Baking Chips - clearanced to $0.29
FINAL COST: $0.29

At Target
2 Mott's Applesauce (6 pk.) - $1.67 ea., used two $1 Target coupons and two $0.55 coupons
FINAL COST: $0.12 ea.
Dr. Pepper (2 liter) - $1.49 used free item coupon
FINAL COST: FREE
Cat Food - $0.84 used free item coupon
FINAL COST: FREE

At CVS
Crest ProHealth Toothpaste - $2.99, used $1 coupon and got $2 ECB
FINAL COST: FREE

To see even more great weekly deals, check out the posts at Money Saving Mom!